Guy Talk
by KameTerra
Summary: Raph and Mikey are just hanging out, like brothers do... Bound-verse. One-shot.


Author's Note: _This story takes place after Bound. If you have not read Bound, all you need to know is that April and Raph are now a couple, and when Don found out the sh*t hit the fan. Other than that, enjoy!_

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><p><span>Guy Talk<span>  
>By KameTerra<p>

Raphael cast a sidelong glance to his brother, who was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, apparently completely absorbed by the movie that was playing. Then he took another drink of his soda, his stomach flipping nervously. _Damn. This is gonna be harder than I thought._

Seemed like a good plan… in theory at least. The last couple months, during all the drama with Don, Michelangelo had done nothing but bug him to hang out, and all Raph had done was push him away. Now that things had settled down again, Mike was due some quality time. Actually, he was due a helluva lot more than that—a fact that Raphael was all too aware of.

So here they were, just the two of them, watchin' some TV… the perfect opportunity. All he had to do was say the words. Thing was, the guy was makin' it too damned easy to skip that kind a' thing, too easy for Raph to tell himself it was understood, that actually _saying_ it wasn't necessary. He almost wished his brother had been a little more difficult to win over, _demanded_ an apology first, if not outright groveling. At least that way Raph could've gotten it over with, and even acted grudging about it. But instead Mike had grinned and bounced right up when he'd suggested a movie, heading straight for the kitchen to make popcorn and calling over his shoulder for Raph to pick a movie and get it started.

He'd even put butter on _both_ bowls of popcorn.

Damn him. Raph didn't deserve butter on his popcorn. In fact, Mike should've brought him a bowl full of _burnt_ popcorn. _That_ would a' been a little more fitting. Michelangelo hadn't even listened to his protests that he didn't want to pick the movie, and in the end Raph had gone with Super Troopers. He and Mike both found it abso-fuckin-lutely hilarious, but that wasn't the real reason he'd picked it. He'd picked it because he knew Leonardo hated it. An' if he was ever gonna work up the nerve to apologize, he sure as hell didn't need any witnesses.

"Dude, something wrong with your popcorn?"

Raph looked up with a start, then down at his bowl, which was still nearly full. "No, it's uh, it's good. Thanks."

Mike shrugged. "No prob." He turned back to the screen and grinned. "Sweet, it's almost to the 'meow' part! Get the controller ready." They always had to rewind that part at least three times. The best comedy only got better with repetition.

Raphael obligingly picked up the remote and replayed the scene when it got to the end, but his chuckles were rather forced. He glanced quickly over at Mikey again, who still seemed absorbed in the movie. _Now, do it now._ He cleared his throat to speak.

Mike looked over at the sound.

_Hey, sorry I've been such a dickwad. _Those were the words. Simple. Now he just had to say 'em!"Hey…" He faltered.

Mike waited expectantly.

"…You, um, you want some a' my popcorn?" _Fucking pussy_, he berated himself.

Mike looked down into his own bowl, which was down to mostly fragments and un-popped kernels. Then his eyes flicked to Raph's, which was half full. "Um, sure?" He was clearly confused, but Mikey rarely questioned it when he was offered more food.

Raphael passed his bowl, and there was a moment as Mike was taking it from him that their eyes met. Raph looked quickly away, and took another drink of his soda. Then he pretended to go back to watching the movie. _God, could I be more fucked up?_

He heard Mike munch some more popcorn, though it sounded less frenzied than it had earlier. Then he heard him swallow. "You don't have to say it," the younger turtle at last.

Raph's head snapped up, but Mike was staring down at the popcorn bowl. Slowly his blue eyes came up to meet Raph's. "It's fine, okay? I don't care. I mean I _do_ care, 'cause you were a total dickwad. But really, I just want to go back to the way things were. Like this. Just hangin' out. So…consider yourself off the hook. In fact, I _forbid_ you to apologize. There. Now relax and forget it."

Suddenly, in spite of his older brother status, Raph was the one who felt like a kid, unable to utter even a simple apology to his own _brother_, for chrissake. Mike still acted like a kid in so many ways that it was easy to forget there was a mature side buried somewhere in there. Usually very _deeply_ buried, which meant it was that much more shocking when it emerged.

All Raph could do was stare and then nod dumbly.

Mike nodded back in acknowledgment, his expression remaining serious for another split second before he broke into an easy smile. Then he turned back to the TV and tucked into the popcorn with renewed vigor.

"Mike?"

The turtle looked over questioningly.

"I am, you know," Raphael said quietly.

Mikey swallowed a mouthful of popcorn, one side of his mouth curving upward in a smile. "I know." Then he held out the bowl towards Raph. "Popcorn?"

Raph leaned forward and helped himself to a handful before settling back into the couch. This time he had no problem getting into the movie.

By the time it was over, Raph was thinking longingly of bed. He'd had a good workout earlier, besting Leo in two out of three matches, and he knew he'd be paying for it in the morning. Ha, not that it wasn't worth it. But there was no point in making it worse by staying up all night. He stretched, yawned, and was about to get up to clear the dishes when Mike said, "You wanna watch some TV or something?"

Raph looked dubiously at the clock. "Gettin' pretty late, I was kinda thinking of turning in."

Mike snatched up the control. "Well we can at least catch the end of Conan," he said with overdone enthusiasm.

"Mikey, the end of Conan sucks. It's down to the boring third string guest, and the final musical number." And they never had the kind of musical guests Raph would be interested in, anyway.

"But I made you popcorn!"

"Yeah, an' YOU ate most of it!" But that wasn't a fair shot and Raph knew it, since he was the one who'd given his bowl away. And yep, there was Mike giving him The Eyes. Christ, it was like somethin' straight out of a Disney movie when he did that; Raph half expected fuzzy woodland creatures to come out and perch on his knee.

"Come on…pleeeeeaase…"

Raphael turned away with a noise of disgust. "Will you cut that shit out? I'll watch the stupid show with you, okay?" He leaned back on the couch once more, and crossed his arms over his plastron and an ankle over his knee. "Put on whatever you want."

They watched the end of Conan, which turned out to be just as lame Raph had predicted, and as soon as the closing credits came on, Raph sat forward once again to get up.

"Hey, I think maybe Cheaters is on. Lemme just check," Mike said, switching the TV to the guide channel.

"Have fun. I'm out," Raph said, and he rose and began collecting the bowls and soda cans.

"But it's Cheaters! You love Cheaters. Maybe the host will get stabbed again!"

Raph _used_ to love Cheaters. Now it hit a little too close to home for him to find it amusing. "No thanks. See ya in the morning." He headed toward the kitchen with the dirty dishes in hand.

"Well then we can watch something else! There's gotta be something good on…" Mike said, furiously paging through the guide channel. "Hey, what about Intervention!"

"Jeezus, Mike, what the hell's with you tonight?!" Raph exclaimed from the kitchen as he dumped the dishes in the sink. "Donny tell you you got flesh-eating cockroaches under your bed again or something?" That had actually happened, when they were six. Mike had used every stall tactic he could think of to postpone going to bed.

"No, it's um…I'm just not tired yet," the younger turtle answered as Raph came walking back from the kitchen.

Raph did nothing but halt in front of his brother and stare him down, one eye ridge raised. Usually Mike didn't have a problem staying up by himself. It meant he didn't have to compromise on what to watch or what video game to play. No, there was something else going on here, and Raph didn't flatter himself that it was because he was just that exciting to hang out with.

Mike squirmed a little and gave Raph his best pleading eyes, but when Raph didn't budge, he sighed and looked down. "We just haven't, um, spent any time together lately, and I just…I thought maybe we could… talk, or something."

Raph's brow furrowed in confusion. "Talk?" Not exactly what he'd expected. It wasn't like they never talked, but it wasn't typically part of the agenda. More like an incidental. "Then what's with tryin' ta get me to watch TV?"

"I thought I'd have a better chance of getting you to stay up that way," Mike confessed. "And then maybe we'd just…you know, end up talking."

Raphael studied him with growing concern, though he tried not to show it. If whatever Mike wanted to say was bothering him that much… "Something wrong, bro?" he asked gruffly.

"No! No, it's not…" His eyes darted up to Raph's and then lowered. "I'm fine."

"Then what the hell's your problem!" Okay, maybe he should have a bit more patience, but damned if he was gonna stand here an' coax whatever it was out of his brother one word at a time.

Mike shifted uncomfortably, risking a quick glance at Raph before his eyes turned downward once again. "I just wanted to…I just wondered…what's it…" he cleared his throat lightly. "What's it like?"

If Raph was confused before, he was completely baffled now. "What's what like?" he asked blankly.

"You know… with April. You guys are like… doin' it, right?"

Oh. _That_ it. And suddenly, the entire evening made a lot more sense to Raph, right down to the buttered popcorn.

He hadn't seen this coming, but he probably should have. He and Mikey used to talk about girls sometimes, about sex, wonder what it might be like, but that was more in their early teens, when it was still distant enough to seem like a real possibility. As they got older, Raph assumed that all of them thought as he did—that they were more likely to get struck by lightening than to ever get laid. And now he had an honest-to-god _girlfriend_, which naturally carried the implication of some sort of a sex life. If their positions were reversed, Raph would've been curious, too.

Difference was, he never would've risked his pride by asking.

Raphael stood there for a moment, mentally debating how much to say, and how much trouble he'd be in with said girlfriend if she found out… but then he thought of all the times he'd blown Mikey off in the last couple of months, and how readily his brother had forgiven him, shrugging it off as if Raph had done nothing more than forget to wipe down the bench press after his workout, or eaten the last egg roll. Hell, he'd have thrown _more _of a fit over the egg roll. After a brief hesitation, Raphael crossed over to the couch and slowly sat back down in his recently vacated spot. Didn't seem like he could get in _too_ much trouble, long as he didn't go into specifics… and he owed Mikey something.

"Yeah, I guess we're, um…yeah," he said, trying to appear casual even as he avoided his brother's eyes.

When Raph sat down again, Mikey apparently took it as permission to ask more questions, though he still sounded somewhat tentative. "Like, all of it? Home run? Slam dunk?" Then a pause and an impish, "Parking the corvette?"

Raph rolled his eyes, then scratched the back of his neck self-consciously and nodded. He glanced quickly to the side to see Mike's reaction, but instead of looking more relaxed at this assurance, or grinning like a fool, the younger turtle was leaning forward, his muscles rigid, staring at Raph intently.

"And everything…works?" his brother asked.

Raphael instantly bristled, a hot retort on his tongue, but a re-assessment of Mikey's face stopped the words before they left his mouth. There was no trademark shit-eating grin, no hint of a smile waiting to surface, or laughter behind his eyes. Instead he was just waiting expectantly, his expression both hopeful and vaguely…apprehensive. And Raph's taut muscles eased when he understood—his brother wasn't questioning his personal ability to perform, he was asking for confirmation that they were compatible with humans at _all_.

"Yeah, Mike," he said, meeting his brother's eyes with quiet sincerity. "Yeah. It works. I mean, April says it's, um, different," he added, "But not like _bad_ different."

Michelangelo studied his eyes for a moment, and suddenly gave a sigh and flopped back against the couch cushions, a slow smile forming on his face. "Dude, I can't _tell_ you how glad I am to hear that. Cuz like, sex is definitely on my list of things to do before I die, pretty close to the top, really, and I couldn't help thinking, like, what if we couldn't? With humans, I mean? What if I found someone who, like, actually _wanted_ to, but something didn't bend right, or fit, or something?"

"Yeah, that would…suck," Raph said, glad he didn't have Mikey's overactive imagination.

"Tell me about it! Now at least I don't have to worry about _that _part."

_No_, _just the finding a partner part, _Raph thought, but he didn't voice it out loud. He was sure his brother didn't need a reality check on that. Besides, if _he'd_ found someone, who was to say Mike wouldn't someday?

His brother just sat for minute, staring forward with a lazy smile on his face, and just as Raphael was thinking of getting up again, Mikey turned to him, his smile broadening into a glowing-eyed grin. He shifted so he was facing Raph, and leaned forward eagerly. "_So?"_

Raph's brow ridges shot up. "So… what?"

"So, what's it like?" Mikey insisted, his exasperation at Raph's slowness evident in his tone.

Raph hesitated. "Look," he answered slowly, "Nothing personal, but it ain't exactly in the best interests of my sex life to go blabbing about it."

Mikey rolled his eyes. "Dude, I'm not asking for a blow-by-blow account or anything, but you gotta give me _something_. It's like, part of the rules, you know? When one dude gets laid, it's pretty much his sacred duty to throw a few scraps to his buddies! And it's not like I can just go ask someone else!"

"Right," Raphael conceded reluctantly, even though he didn't entirely buy his brother's reasoning. He told himself he was only doing this because he owed Mike—it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that it kinda sorta felt _good_ to be able to talk about it. "It's…" he floundered for a moment, trying to think of something that would satisfy his younger sibling without getting too specific. Then he shrugged, and couldn't stop one side of his mouth from quirking up in a smirk as his eyes connected with Mike's. "It's better than your right hand, that's for damn sure."

Michelangeo laughed briefly, but he wasn't so easily satisfied. "C'mon, you gotta give me more than that. I mean, is it awesome? It's awesome, right?" he asked, eyes sparkling behind his orange mask.

"Totally awesome," Raph agreed.

Mike's smile widened still more, though Raph would've sworn that wasn't possible.

"Okay, so, on a scale of one to ten," his brother continued, "One being… pizza, and ten being becoming Battle Nexus Champion, how would it score? Don't worry that you don't _know_ how great it is to be Battle Nexus Champion," he added, "Just try to imagine it—it's really, really awesome."

Raph went serious. "What kind of pizza we talkin'?"

"Nick's. The works, plus bacon."

Raphael nodded. "An' does bein' Battle Nexus Champion mean beating you to a bloody pulp?"

Mike shrugged. "Hey, it's your fantasy."

Raph nodded again. "Bloody pulp it is. Well, then, I'd say it's… hmmm… I guess I'd say… if you think grappling with another dude, not to mention your _brother_, comes anywhere close to getting' it on with an actual chick, you might wanna start askin' some different questions."

But even a dig like that did nothing to quash Mike's grin, or dampen his enthusiasm. If anything, Raph's continued participation made him more persistent. "Good point," he said with a grin. There was a pause, then a conspiratorial, "So do you guys do it, like, all the time?"

"Um, not all the time. Gotta eat now an' then, right?" He was actually starting to enjoy himself a little now, and by the look on his brother's face, this kind of answer was exactly what he wanted to hear.

"Got any tips for me?" Mike asked eagerly. "Things you maybe wish you would've known…beforehand?"

"Yeah. Ya don't get bonus points for finishing first."

Mike rolled his eyes and snorted. "C'mon, bro, I'm serious. There's gotta be _something_ you can tell me that won't get you in trouble…unless you're just completely pussy-whipped."

"Better than the alternative!" Raph snarled, but he was already casting about for something that would prove he was NOT in any way pussy-whipped. Things he wished he would've known? Jeezus, that could take all night.

"I guess, um… I guess if you're, like, feeling nervous or whatever… just remember you're still probably more prepared than _she_ is. Unless she's really into turtle porn."

Mikey laughed. "I guess I never really thought of it that way." Then he turned more serious, and his eyes met Raph's. "Was April? Surprised about… stuff? I mean, she's known us a long time, so she'd have been more prepared than most… right?"

"In some ways, I guess," he answered wryly. "Least she knew the basics."

"Like what?"

"Like, where I was keepin' the goods."

Mike's brow furrowed in confusion. "Huh?"

Raph sighed impatiently. "Look, you know what human dudes look like naked, with all their junk just hangin' out there?"

This time Mike's snout wrinkled distastefully. "Yeah. Ew."

"Well apparently, since ours ain't just flappin' in the breeze, most humans would have no idea where we keep it."

Mike just stared. "You're kidding, right?"

Raph shook his head. "April told me she only knew cuz she, uh, did a little research. Apparently turtle anatomy ain't somethin' most people are curious about."

Michelangelo's eyes opened wide in astonishment. "So, so, what do they think, we keep it tucked away under our plastrons somewhere?"

"Beats me," Raph answered with a shrug. "But I'd be willing to bet the _last_ thing a girl would expect is to see it comin' outta your tail."

The orange-masked turtle was speechless for a moment, and finally he said, "So, maybe if it's, like… if I think I'm about to, yannow, get some? I should, like, try an' prepare her a little?"

"Yeah, sure. Piece of cake. Tell her to google it. Or better yet, get her to go on youtube—that'd get her in the mood for sure."

Mike grimaced. "… Good point."

"I mean, when it comes to dicks, most humans don't seem very open-minded."

"Huh," the younger turtle said, but his formerly eager expression had changed. He actually looked sort of… worried, and Raph mentally berated himself when he realized what this was probably doing to his brother's fragile sexual confidence.

"But um, hey. Different ain't _bad_. Least we got nothin' to worry about in the size department. And if she's really into you, bein' different won't matter, Mikey," he added in an earnest tone.

Mike looked up, clearly wanting to believe him.

"Swear ta god—if she's the right one, she'll get over it."

The younger turtle studied his face and then exhaled, nodding to himself. "Okay." Then he looked down at his lap and heaved another sigh, looking thoughtful. Then he brightened a little. "Hey! Maybe you could help me out!" he said, looking up at Raph.

"Huh?"

"Well, April can't be the only human on the planet who's open-minded enough to go for guys like us. I mean, you're not even the good-looking one," he said matter-of-factly. "Not even top two, actually." He paused, looking at Raph, and shook his head. "Actually, to be honest, I have no idea how April could've picked you over me… but that's beside the point!"

"Which you'd better be getting to—_fast_," Raph warned.

"Okay, okay—so I thought, like, maybe April has a friend? One who's cute, open-minded… and maybe a little slutty?" he asked hopefully. "And big boobs are always a plus, of course," he added matter-of-factly.

"Good night, Mikey," Raph said, rising from the couch.

"Hey! C'mon, bro! Help a guy out!" Michelangelo called after him, but Raph ignored him and headed to his room, shaking his head good-naturedly. _I hope you do find someone, someday, bro. I hope you do. Mutant or not, a girl could do a lot worse._


End file.
